Plenary Speakers

Adrian Scrase

Adrian Scrase played a central role in the creation of the “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) and is responsible for the operations of the 3GPP Project Co-ordination Group. He heads 3GPPs’ Mobile Competence Centre (MCC) which is an International team of 20 experts who provide comprehensive support to the Project. He is CTO within ETSI with operational responsibility for all of ETSI’s standards production activities. He has more than 30 years experience in the telecommunications field, which includes 25 years of experience in standardization.

Kate Forbes

Kate Forbes is from Dingwall, although she has spent part of her upbringing in Glasgow and India. Until she was elected as MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Kate was employed as an accountant in the banking industry. Prior to that she studied History at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh with a focus on human migration.
As a backbencher, she has served on the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, the Health and Sport Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. She also served as Parliamentary Liaison Officer for Finance and the Constitution.
As well as leading a campaign to ban plastic straws, Kate has participated in several cross-party groups at Holyrood including Crofting, Gaelic, Human Trafficking, Palliative Care and Rural Policy. A fluent Gaelic speaker, Kate made history earlier this year by becoming the first female MSP to give a plenary speech entirely in Gaelic in the current Scottish Parliament chamber.
On 27 June 2018 she was appointed as Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy.

Talk Title: Digital Scotland: Internet of Things

‘The Internet of Things is set to be one of the most transformative technologies of the digital age, bringing benefits to every industry sector from manufacturing to agriculture to public services. The Scottish Government sees IoT as a vital part of our nation’s digital future. The Minister will set out how the Scottish Government is building on our rich heritage of innovation to ensure we are an inventor and producer of the future, not just a consumer.

This ambition is founded on a series of new initiatives in Scotland, spanning the digital economy, data-driven innovation and the development of IoT network infrastructure. Collectively these will drive economic growth with the aim of creating a fairer, more inclusive society’.

Patricia Florissi

Patricia Florissi is VP, Global CTO for Sales at Dell EMC. She defines mid and long term technology strategy, representing the needs of the broader Dell EMC ecosystem in strategic initiatives. She has a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University, an MBA from Stern Business School in NY University, and a Master’s & Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, in Brazil.

Brian Galovich

Brian Galovich heads Digital Technology at UTC Aerospace Systems. In this role, his focus is on the development and execution of a meaningful digital strategy. This strategy will unlock greater value for customers and the business by enabling connected, software-based and intelligent solutions.

Brian brings more than 23 years of UTC experience to this role, having held a number of senior technology leadership positions across program management, sales and service, infrastructure and platforms, operations and engineering technology. He has previously lead technology teams at Hamilton Sundstrand, and served as vice president and CIO for both Pratt & Whitney and Global Business Systems at UTC.

Brian is committed to implementing technology driven solutions to deliver value to our customers, create operational efficiencies and enhance the employee experience. At UTC, Brian was responsible for the strategic oversight and management of corporate enterprise applications and partnered with senior functional leaders to accelerate simplification of the systems landscape. He has dedicated more than two decades to leveraging technology for the benefit of the Aerospace industry.

At UTC Aerospace Systems, Brian brings a digital-first approach that delivers an enhanced customer experience through the integration of technologies, people, information and processes. He works to create a real-time digital thread connecting engineering to customers and the supply chain, to better meet customer expectations, expand market share and reduce costs.

Brian currently serves on multiple Aerospace & Defense industry executive committees and is active in charitable giving, spending time as chairperson for United Way. Brian holds a bachelor’s degree in management information systems from the University of Connecticut, a master’s degree in management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master’s degree in e-commerce & business technology from Carnegie Mellon University.

Yusuf Jamal

As senior vice president of the Industrial, Healthcare, Consumer, and IoT Solutions and Security Group, Mr. Jamal is responsible for growing ADI’s leadership position in those markets. Mr. Jamal ensures that ADI’s technology strategy is tightly aligned to our markets’ and customers’ most pressing engineering and business challenges. He oversees the ongoing development of ADI’s technology capabilities including emergent applications of high performance sensing and Industrial IoT technologies. Prior to his current role, Mr. Jamal served as vice president of ADI’s Consumer and Healthcare business units where he built a differentiated, sustainable business for ADI that more than doubled in size under his leadership.

Mr. Jamal has nearly two decades of experience in the semiconductor industry. He joined ADI as a Field Applications Engineer in 2002 and has held multiple technology, business, and leadership positions at the company. Prior to joining ADI, Mr. Jamal worked on creating a flexible design methodology for developing scalable DSP architectures for a startup in Stockholm, Sweden.

Mr. Jamal earned a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering (with Honors) from AMU, India and his master’s degree in Digital Signal Processing from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur).

Didier Nkurikiyimfura

Didier Nkurikiyimfura is the Director of Technology and Innovation at the Smart Africa Secretariat. In his current position, Didier is in charge of developing a sustainable Technology and Innovation ecosystem in Smart Africa Member States collaboration with Governments, private sector, academia and a wide range of stakeholders and partners. He currently oversees the implementation of strategic initiatives such as the free roaming initiative (also known as the “One Africa Network” project), increasing affordability and accessibility of Internet in Africa and the Smart Africa scholarship fund.

Christopher O’Connor

Chris O’Connor is the CEO of Persistent Systems. In previous roles he was General Manager, Internet of Things for IBM, focused on growth of this area for clients and IBM. Chris was responsible for the product strategy and engineering of the IBM Tivoli Software Division in IBM and similarly for the Industry Solutions Software division around Smart Commerce and Smart Cities. His roles have involved successive responsibilities around arranging patterns of software for industry as well as IT data center value. Chris is an active member of the IBM Growth and Transformation Team and has served on the IBM Technology Team. This role reports directly to IBM’s CEO and senior leaders. He has been active in the IT Industry for the past 25 years both within IBM and at other industry software providers.

Wendy Belluomini

Dr. Wendy Belluomini is the Director of IBM Research – Ireland & Cognitive IoT Solutions. Previously, she served as IBM’s strategist for Brain-inspired Computing where she led the commercialization strategy for IBM’s brain inspired computing hardware and ecosystem. In this role she developed the first commercial uses of brain inspired computing hardware. Prior to that, she led a research team in enterprise storage systems which created technologies to improve the reliability and performance of IBM’s enterprise storage products, including the first deployment of commodity flash memory in an enterprise storage system. She has also held several key technical roles in IBM Research in the areas of microprocessor architecture and design, EDA tools, and formal verification. Dr Belluomini is the co-author of 30 patents and has published extensively in technical conferences and journals. She has an undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City

Plenary Panel on Future IoT Research and Innovation

The panel session on Future IoT Research and Innovation will focus on directions of National and International R&D programs to accelerate the development of IoT technologies and deployment, contrasting distinct focus areas in different regions of the world. The panel is designed to shed light on future funding programs by these different organizations so that researchers as well as industry participants can consider these opportunities and contribute to these programs effectively.

The panel will open with an introduction by the four panelists into IoT research and innovation activities ongoing and planned for the near future by their respective organizations.

Dr. Hyun Kim from the national Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) will highlight Korean governmental policies, technology directions and upcoming programs regarding IoT devices, networks and platforms putting special emphasis on the integration of AI technologies into novel IoT solutions.

Dr. Thyaga Nandagopal from NSF will address the potential of IoT to enable a smart and connected community to enable inclusion of so far underrepresented groups. He will also focus on the interplay of IoT, 5G and the computing eco-system.

Nikos Isaris from the European Commission’s IoT Unit will elaborate the EU’s action plan for IoT covering research, deployment, business aspect, regulation, including upcoming (2020 and beyond) R&D&I programs. He will describe the currently ongoing large IoT pilots in verticals such as connected cars, smart cities, smart agriculture, and aging well. In addition he will address policy work on security, privacy and liability.

Dr. Aisling McEvoy from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) will focus on the SFI’s programs to facilitate partnerships between academia and industry to support the evolution of IoT infrastructures within the Pervasive Irish Nation program. She will address IoT infrastructures in vertical segments such as precision, pasture-based dairying, advanced manufacturing and smart docklands.

The second half of this plenary session will be open to questions from the audience to panelists.

Plenary Panelists

Hyun Kim

Dr. Hyun Kim is currently the Assistant Vice President of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in Korea. He is also the head of IoT research division which carries out a wide range of R&D projects in the next-generation IoT technologies and applications. Since 2012, he has been an adjunct professor at University of Science and Technology, Korea. He also served as an adjunct professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan from 2012 to 2013. He worked a visiting researcher at University of Florida, USA from 2007 to 2008. He received his BS, MS and ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Department from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea. His current research interests include Internet of Things and applications, intelligent systems, context-aware systems and intelligent robot & interaction.

Thyaga Nandagopal

Dr. Thyaga Nandagopal is the Deputy Division Director of the Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) Division in the Directorate of Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation. He previously served as a Program Director at the NSF in the Networking Technologies and Systems (NeTS) program, where he managed mobile systems and wireless networking research across multiple funding programs with an annual budget of over $50M. At NSF, he is also leading the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research program, a $100M effort announced in July 2016. He also serves as the co-chair of the Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Senior Steering Group (WSRD SSG), which co-ordinates spectrum-related research and development activities across the Federal government. He is an IEEE Fellow, and holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Before that, Nikos was responsible for Future Internet Research and Experimentation in the same Directorate. He joined DG CONNECT in 2013 coming from the Directorate-General for Home Affairs, where he was Deputy Head in the Unit “Large-scale IT systems and Biometrics” dealing with IT systems for the Schengen area.

Before the European Commission, Nikos worked in the private banking and electronic banking sectors in his home country Greece.

He holds an MBA with Honours, a Master’s degree with Distinction in Data Communications and Networks from University College London and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Heraklion in Crete.

Aisling McEvoy

Dr. Aisling McEvoy is Head of Enterprise Partnerships at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). SFI’s industry partnership programmes provide an opportunity for industry to collaborate directly with scientists and engineers within Irish research bodies at a number of levels ranging from seeding an initial engagement with an academic group, to large-scale collaborative endeavours. Within SFI, Aisling has managed programmes for senior investigators and early/mid-career researchers, as well as partnership programmes with international funding agencies. She has also had responsibility for research impact and peer review within the Foundation.

Aisling graduated from University College Dublin with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Experimental Physics, and received her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Dublin City University, after which she held positions both in the private sector and in third level research before joining SFI.